Phantom: Story 1 of the Phantom Series
by J S Arnold
Summary: When Damon finds her sleepwalking and can't wake her he has to find a way to awaken her before it is too late! What could a little more darkness hurt? Will Damon ever be the same? Will Bamon?
1. Drawn to you

Phantom

1

Damon tapped his pen on the table and looked down at what he had written in the leather-bound book. This was a new hobby he was trying to get into, and so far he could not think of anything else to write about but her. He had already written pages on other days, and still he could write more about her. Bonnie, that little creature who had stolen what stronger, more head-strong, girls could not, had stolen his heart, could never know what he felt for her. That was the reason he brought this damned book; what wasn't said couldn't be retold, he chose instead to write his feelings down in this book where no one would ever know.

He stared into wooden walls of the study and caught his lower lip between his teeth, thinking about not thinking about her. If he thought about her too much, he would want to go and see her, but she was still in school. He couldn't go there because he had no business in that place. The school was Stefan's domain, as the shadows were his, and who knew how much trouble he would get into if he was seen there? He allowed himself to smile for a moment before he turned it off like you would do a light switch – effortlessly, coldly, as if he was only putting on a show.

But a show for whom? He was alone but for the spiders which clung to the ceiling and stared down at him with those many, beady eyes. Happiness was always fleeting for him, as if in order to stay stimulated he needed constant stimulation. He sighed and spun around so that the leather-bound chair faced the currently closed door. There was a knock and he allowed a little of the growl to leave his lips. "What is it?" he snapped.

The door was pushed open and Bonnie came in carrying what looked like a duffel bag stuffed with things he knew were her's. At first he was suspicious, why did she bring so much if she was just going to see him? Was the stuff in that bag as innocent as he hoped? Her heart was beating so fast that he had to wonder at her intentions. She was either excited or scared, but he couldn't decide on which until she told him why she was here. He shut the journal with a lightening fast move and tried not to seem as flustered as he felt. "Bonnie? What are you doing here? Who let you in?"

Something about how he said the words did something to her. She fidgeted at once and instantly looked as if she wished she were any place but here, her eyes wide and sort of pleading. Damon kind of liked that look on her face, that fear, it made him think about her in more ways than one.

Damon shook his head to clear it – to rid himself of such dangerous thoughts. He could not afford to lose control, because if all his fiery passion were released it would surly kill her. Instead, he kept his mind human for-the-most-part and tried not to taste the fear that was coming off of her like waves of promise.

"What's wrong?" he asked, standing from his desk and going around it to reach her. He could have jumped it, which would have meant reaching her that fraction quicker, but she already looked as brittle as a thin sheet of ice over a puddle – push too hard, push at all, and the surface will break.

"... something... to get me... something... I need to get away... run..." she murmured indistinctly,

"Shhh," he calmed her, just holding her the way he wanted to hold her, "What's wrong?" He hugged her tightly to his chest and rocked her gently, wondering how on earth she had managed to find her way here in her sleep.


	2. Do anything for you

**Phantom**

2

Damon had her tied to a chair, each wrist bound to the arm rests at either side, when Stefan came in and saw her. He had made sure not to tie the cuffs around her wrists so tightly that it cut off the circulation to her hands, but he had to at least make them tight enough that she could not get out of them so easily. The last half-hour had been spent try to corral her into sitting and he would have been damned if he hadn't done something to make sure she stayed there. It made his heart ache to see her in the state she was in, to know that the only way to keep her safe was to treat her like an animal that needed to be tied up. If Bonnie were an animal, now when he imagined her, she would be something small and fluffy like a bunny. Maybe he would buy one for her when this was all over, he thought, a big white fluffy one.

When he ran his fingers down the side of her face, barely touching her skin, he felt something like an electric charge travel through his arm and into his chest. She was so beautiful that if she were ever his queen he would never be in shadow; He would be her knight in shining armour if she wanted him to be, but whatever she wanted later would have to wait. He would rescue her from whatever nightmare held her captive, he would slay any dragon the stood in his way, and anything else that stood in his way.

Even when she was clearly unreceptive, he spoke to her as if she was. He was almost done with the restraints that would keep her from wandering off. He hardly noticed when Stefan first said his name, too intent on tying the tightest knot a vampire could tie, and he almost went berserk when Stefan laid a hand on his shoulder heavily.

"Damn it Stefan," he said in a hard, quiet voice, "couldn't you see I am busy?"

Stefan looked at Bonnie, a prisoner in the old wooden chair, and then back at Damon. He had to wonder what twisted game he was playing now – the girl was obviously under some sort of spell. Maybe it wasn't Damon influencing her directly, but his brother was devious enough to plan for someone else to do it. "What kind of game are you playing, Damon? What is it that you hope to achieve, charm her into submission? The spell you cast–"

He could only take so much. "You think that if I could do magic I would turn her into this?" he roared, gesturing to the seemingly unconscious Bonnie bound to the chair with metallic clamps, "You think I would sink as low as to _influence_ her? Unlike you brother, I need no..." he tapped his chin pensively, "...assistance... with the ladies..."

"Elena will have your head if she saw this." Stefan said, his voice as placid as the stillest waters.

"I don't care what Elena thinks or does or says. I don't care about anything..."

Stefan interrupted in voice which dripped with knowledge of someone in on an inside joke. "Yes, yes I know Damon. You care about nothing more than do yourself... nothing more than your own pleasure..." He was smiling as he said this.

"Shut up, Stefan! You know _nothing _of what I am thinking, _nothing_ of what I am feeling. If you _did_, then you would run the hell out of here." Damon wasn't making an idle threat, as if he ever meant anything other than what he said, and he could barely restrain himself now. If his idiotic little brother didn't begin to grasp the seriousness of the situation soon... hell, he didn't know what he'd do.

Bonnie moaned and her head hung limply against her chest. Her fingers were clawed against the now tattered arm-rest and her shoulders shook in a way that both the vampires watching found disturbing. The obnoxious expression Stefan had been wearing dropped and instead turned into a look of sick apprehension. He looked at his brother and allowed himself to see the raw despair and utter bewilderment stamped on his face. Hadn't he too felt that way when the people of Fells Church suspected him of murdering Elena, hadn't he felt so hopeless and confused, defensive?

Damon took her limp hand in his and squeezed it gently. He kissed it, kneeling at her side as he was, and whispered in her ear that he would save her any way he could. He didn't care if Stefan thought that talking to her when she was not aware was stupid, he didn't care if he said anything to Elena, he didn't care if he had to save her all on his own.

"What can I do?" he asked, feeling as if he should take Damon's shoulder or something but not daring to. Damon seemed far to delicate at the moment, too vulnerable, and he feared what would happen. He knew how confusing it was to love again after centuries of avoiding any attachment to anyone because of what you were, but if it meant a chance to be loved it was worth every second that you fought to make it right.


	3. The Darkness Within

Phantom

3

Bonnie tried to get them to notice her, but even when she screamed their names neither of them reacted. She could see Damon holding the lifeless hand tightly but she could not feel it like she ought to have, a lingering tingle on her fingertips instead. She didn't know what had happened, she only knew that the nightmare that had swallowed her as she slept kept her hidden – invisible and muted like a faded memory in the back of the mind. However much she called, shouted, screamed his name he did not hear her tell him that this was the page in the spell book that he needed. With how strong Damon was he should have at least felt her presence in the atmosphere around him.

She could see something moving out of the corner of her eye, but when she moved to stare directly at it, the mass of darkness turned grey and disappeared. She didn't have to be told not to let them close enough to touch her; this nightmare, or whatever it was, had begun in the attic and up in there there had been many, many Ghosts, and when one had laid a hand on her shoulder it felt as if she died a little inside. Now they were following her everywhere, intent on contacting her again and she knew if she let them they would inevitably kill her. The intensity of the vibrations in the air spiked and she dodged the hand that had been not an inch from touching her skin.

"This won't work," Stefan said, even as he held the burning herbs between his fingers like Damon had told him to, "we have no witches to cast the spell. It won't work without magic, Damon."

The spell book Damon had... borrowed... from a witch a few centuries ago was splayed open on the floor. It's spine was cracked and falling to pieces in places but the writing was preserved enough for him to read it. The calligraphy was intricate enough that even after so long it was clear enough to read and almost as dark enough for the ink to not have even dried. He ran his fingers over the strange, elegantly written, words and wished he knew what he was looking for in the great volume.

Damon had had about enough of Stefan's remarks, but he could not pause in the incantation to tell him this – besides, he probably already knew he was only making things worse and he didn't want to give his brother the satisfaction of knowing that he was getting to him. He had to repeat this spell three times, and each section was at least seven lines long, and there were fourteen making up the entire spell. Why witches felt they needed to complicate things by writing these _poems_ he didn't know, but as long as the spell worked he knew he could not complain.

Stefan felt the shift in the air even before Damon, which was strange since he had never been strong enough to have the extra-sensory perception needed to sense the spirits. Why Damon was not reacting he did not know, but even he could taste it in the air; it was the same kind as in the cemetery, it was the feel of the dead. Bonnie reached down past Damon's shoulder and touched the frayed edge of the old paper page. She pressed down as hard as she could until there was almost an indentation in the surface of the page, and Damon paused in the middle of turning over the page.

There was something about this one that tugged at Damon's intuition like a hook. He read over the page again, but the words still made no sense to him. They weren't even in English, but instead an ancient language without any Latin origins, but there was something almost physical stopping him from turning over the page.

In all this time that he had had it he never once tried to read from it. He was smarter than that, he knew the power that could be unleashed from a book such as this one, and the witch he had taken it from hadn't been practising white magic, or at least that he had known of. It had been her unrelenting darkness that drew him to her in the first place, and for a time they gloried in each other's darkest passions. But then, of course, he had had to kill her. She had tried to take possession of him one night, after thinking that she had convinced him that her intentions were pure, but he knew enough of her magic to know that there was nothing pure about her. He had ripped open her throat before she could even begin the second verse.

He traced the lines of the spell with the tip of his finger, moving his lips but not speaking the words, and knew that wielding such power came with a price.

Stefan placed the herbs beside Bonnie's head and stepped away into the shadows. Black magic was inherently draining, and Stefan knew he was not strong enough to even stand beside the ring he had drawn with the pail yellow plants.

Damon began to recite the spell out loud and the words seemed to come from his lips as one, the sound a continuous jumble of words, not making sense at all. Midway through reading it out-loud the second time, Damon began to fear that it would not work and trying this was just wasting time they couldn't afford to use if they then needed to find another method in which to banish whatever spirit had come uninvited into this body.

Nothing happened. Bonnie's body sat motionless in the chair, head bowed and ruby curls falling like a curtain over her face. Stefan found that he did not want to rub this failure in Damon's face, not again, but he had been right about there being no point in trying to cast a spell . Vampires were everything that magic was not, they were dead and death was the only thing they as vampires could create.

"There must be something else we can try!" Damon shouted hoarsely, his eyes burning not with tears but fierce, desperate conviction. He had to believe that there was another way, he had too, or else he would go mad . He would give up his soul, or whatever burned inside of him, to bring Bonnie back to life. He crawled to kneel beside Bonnie's body and stroked her cheek almost absently as he watched something dark move beneath her skin. If he could only pull it out of her he would; he would suffer whatever vengeance the darkness might inflict on him for that chance to save her before it was too late.

"Bite her." Stefan said, his voice full of that thoughtfulness that Damon lacked.

"What!" was his response, "How would that make things any better? It would just make things worse, Stefan. It's too dangerous."

"Maybe if you suck hard enough you could draw it out?"

Damon had to admit that his stupid younger brother might have a point. Could he 'suck' the evil out of her? What would he become then? He knew that there was no answer, and he knew that he did not care. Whatever the price, it was worth it. He bent down to her neck, and opened his jaw wide. He could do this, he knew he could do this, but that niggling feeling in the back of his mind persisted. It told him that there was another way in which he could draw the evil out, and he knew he would do it even despite the risk to himself. He would do it because he loved her and always would whatever he became.

He pressed his lips to hers and drank her in as if she were the finest wine. Moments passed before it happened, but his resolve never wavered. The darkness that had been inside her now part of his own, and he had never felt so good.

Bonnie blinked and found herself looking up at Damon, his lips curled up in that half-smile that she loved.

A/N: It's not finished yet. In fact, it's just getting started... ;-)


	4. Capture You

**Phantom**

**4**

"Damon?" she asked, her voice as tiny as she felt in that moment and trembling the same as her fingers. She knew something was wrong but she could not put her finger on what it was exactly. Was it his eyes, with that strange light shining in them? Or was it his fangs, which were extended and slick with something just as dangerous as the sharp point at the end? The wound at her throat was raw and weeping the same strange, clear liquid and it left a trail of burning skin in it's wake as it rolled down and onto her shoulders.

"Sweetheart," he said in reply, stroking the side of her neck he hadn't marred, his fingers almost but not actually touching her skin. He stroked one of her legs and then the other, his touch sending both into a complete numbness that transcended anything warmth could mask or cure There was something extremely erotic about the way he gazed at her then, as she squirmed, something loving but dangerous all at the same time, and a shiver of lust traitorously moved through her. "You have no idea what seeing you quiver like that does to me..." he said in a voice that was liquid and dry all at once; it should have made her feel as if she were floating but weighed down by the feeling that something was not right.

Stefan could see, too, that something about Damon was wrong, she could see it in the wideness of his eyes. He seemed weary all of a sudden, as if somehow he had found himself in a cage with a hungry tiger and only a wooden stick to help him fight it off, and he dropped the herbs to the ground. They would be no use to him if Damon chose to lash out. He recognised this Damon only too well from the decades that Damon spent going from town to town, village to village, slaughtering whoever or whatever he found.

He forced her down when Bonnie tried to sit up on the floor, using only one hand because that was all that he needed. This little _human_ had not even a tenth, maybe not a hundredth, of his strength and the other vampire wasn't much better. Still, there had to be _some_ fun to be had. He leant down slowly, kissed her quick and hard, and covered her body with his in a way that was more predatory than sexual. He wanted to frighten the both of them before they could think to run – it was more fun that way because it meant they would be desperate enough to do something stupid.

Bonnie felt as though the weight of him would crush her bones as he stretched on top of her, like her ribs were about to crack as his chest pressed against her's. She and Elena had been told dozens of times how to avoid situations like this one, but anything that could help her seemed impossible now and instead of trying to escape she lay frozen beneath him, praying that it would be over before long. Would he assault her even with Stefan, his _brother_, close enough to see?

"Let her go, Damon," Stefan commanded, "It's me you want, it's me who you want to kill."

Damon gave a maniacal laugh and smiled wickedly as he turned to face him with a whip of his head that should have given him whip-lash, if he were human, "Hmm... yes," his eyes were on Bonnie's when he said what he did next, "the anticipation will be delicious..." and this time when he smiled it was with a promise.

The moment his back was turned to her, she saw her chance and began to crawl backwards towards the kitchen, and she even was able to her feet and two steps closer to her intended target. If Stefan could just distract him for a little bit longer then maybe should could put enough obstacles between her and Damon to have a chance of escaping this horror.

Now that they were face to face, Stefan could see clearly the evil inside his brother. His brother might have won a few points for saving Bonnie, but he could not allow this evil to grow stronger. If he were stronger he would have fought Damon until the demonic thing within gave up it's prize, but the fact was that he had never been as strong as his brother, not even when they were human and they hadn't know vampires existed.

Damon moved at a speed that rendered him invisible and took hold of Bonnie's ankle in a grip that broke her bones. She screamed but he only laughed and continued to tug at the limp ankle as hard as he had done before. She fell to the floor, the pain seeming to spread throughout the rest of her, crying and screaming his name. Her magic was not strong enough to combat this kind of evil, but she hoped her faith was as she prayed for the pain to end.

TBC


	5. Take You

**Phantom**

**5**

Bonnie felt as though she would start crying at any moment, but she held the tears in for fear that they would only make him murder her. She didn't want to die, but she had a terrible feeling she would anyway. One wrong movement and she would die, she didn't have to be told this, she _knew_ just like she knew that she had never been so scared in her life.

Outside, a bolt of lightening lit up the sky and huge droplets of rain hit the pavement like stones. The ones that hit the window cracked like stones against the glass and Stefan wondered if the pane could hold up against the onslaught, and if it didn't he would get Bonnie out of here. The predatory part of him could sense how dangerous Damon was right now, and how desperate the situation had become. Another rumble of thunder sounded and he knew the storm was close to Fells Church.

"Don't try to fight me," Damon told her softly, tiredly, as if he were already exasperated by her desperate attempts to escape, "You know there is no point..." His firm grip only crushed her little bones further, but he would make her stay with him whatever the cost – however much pain he had to cause her for her to realise that. Tears had never stopped him from getting what he wanted before, so why would they make him pause now? Even when her sadness dripped onto the floor as she scrambled on it like a dog he felt nothing but an overwhelming darkness. This was what he had wanted from the beginning, after all.

She wanted to run from him, but now that would be impossible with her obliterated ankle. She didn't want to think about how long it would take to heal, if it was too damaged to heal, she only wanted to get away from Damon as fast as she could. Why was Stefan not doing anything, she wondered vaguely, gritting her teeth against the newest burst of pain to go through her leg. Why was he just standing there and just watching while his brother tried to kill her? Of course, she knew that vampires weren't human, and they might not have human values, but surly he could not just stand there and watch her struggle with everything she had and do nothing? She tried to catch his eye, but Stefan would not look at her.

Stefan found himself unable to move a single muscle and wondered how much was Damon's doing, and how much was his fear. His instincts were screaming something at him, so loud he shouldn't have been able to resist it, but he did not want to put himself in a position where he was making things worse. Who knew what Damon would do, if he tried to intervene? In this state, Stefan knew Damon would have no qualms about killing him in same second. He didn't want to be such a coward, but he knew well the level of pain his brother could deal when he really meant to hurt someone.

"That's it," he whispered in her ear, "be a good little girl and lay yourself down... stay still for me... good, just like that... yes..." Damon leant close and snapped his teeth loudly, smiling wolfishly with an expression on his face that seemed as if it had never been human – without humanity, a manifestation of cruelty and basic instinct. He could smell the anxiety as it rolled off her skin, the scent of fear forming in cool droplets on her forehead, and he hear every delicious pump of her blood through her body; it really was delicious, the sound of her blood rushing through her veins, it sang to him. Her neck was throbbing with it, he practically see the skin rising and falling as it flowed a few millimetres beneath her skin.

Bonnie knew she couldn't have prepared for this, but she had been studying spells in her grandmother's book for almost a year now. She knew the spell to stop all this, but that fact did not prevent the remorse from draining her insides like Damon would soon be. Had there been signs? And if there had been, would she have been strong enough to do something about it? Even now, she did not know if she could have done anything. The fact was, she loved Damon more than she had ever loved anyone else, and if she was going to die at anyone's hands, she had to admit that she would prefer it be at his. His dark light had filled her like a fierce glow, and she was stronger because of him. What would she have been without him? She would have been nothing but one third of a threesome that really was only about Elena. She knew that her life had really started when she first saw him, and she knew that her life would end with him staring into her eyes. "Please, Damon," she begged so quietly it was but a movement of the lips.

"Stop talking." Damon told her, breathing onto her face as he bent down for another stolen kiss. His lips pressed so tenderly to her's that it would be sure to leave her's swollen. Her tears were salty and he managed to catch and taste each one that fell.

What else could she say? Her mind was blankness, a white emptiness that was fathomless and complete. There was nothing she could say to stop him now, that much was clear on his face, which was as angular and perfect as ever. He was a fantastic predator, she thought wryly over the frantic beating of her heart, because she had come willingly to him and now he was going to kill her.

"Please don't kill me..." she whimpered as quietly as she could, shutting her eyes tightly against what she feared would come.

"Be quiet and I won't have to," he said simply, pulling at her trousers until he had them past her knees.

She screamed as another bolt of lightening lit up the sky and a shadowed figure streaked across the lawn.

TBC


	6. Fight Against You

**Phantom**

**6**

It was almost an hour later before the evil inside him was sated – he could not have stopped before then, however much he wanted to. It had taken him that long to kindle the special energy inside him. The power he felt was unlike anything he had ever felt before, but it had come with a price. Bonnie lay beneath him, as still as she could possibly be while sobs rocked her. She wanted more than she wanted anything to be lost in that darkness she sometimes went to, anything to be away from here.

Stefan winced as Bonnie cried for Damon to stop, wanting to save her but not knowing how. He must think of something before the situation became worse than it already is, before it was too late to save her from death. He wondered even now how he could stand to watch Damon abusing her.

He watched as Damon pulled up his trousers, all the while saying something unintelligable to the pile of flesh at his feet, his eyes like hypnotic pools of onyx.

Bonnie felt as though she had been ravaged from the inside out, and the pool of blood she sat in seemed like evidence to back up that theory. She could not think of anything other than how much she hurt, how much _he _had hurt her, and each thought was like a blade to her insides. She wondered how she could have been so wrong about him when she had been so sure. Had he been playing her this whole time? Had he been playing them all? The expression on Stefan's face when she glanced at him told her that he was thinking this as well just as surly as if she could read his mind; Had they been played for fools, and how could any of them have seen this coming?

"Not bad, not bad," Damon said to Bonnie, appraising her as he would do an high-preformance car after taking a ride in it, "we should do that again..." He bent down, the toe of his boot spashing in the gore steming from her groin, and smiled at her as if he knew exactly what would happen next.

Nothing he could have said would have sent her heart racing like that did – nothing, not even if he told her that he would keep her prisoner here until she died or outgrew her usefullness, whichever came first. She had been waiting for the day when she would no longer be a virgin, almost desperately, but she had never once considered it to be like this.

There was a knock at the door and Damon laughed at what he could hear. There was a heartbeat, steady and strong, which meant that whoever the unlucky idiot who interrupted him was human. What could a _human_ possibly do to him? He intercepted Stefan as he motioned to answer. With his luck it would the human Matt Honeycut, and there were things he'd much rather be doing than chatting with him.

When the door opened, however, what stood before him was not a man. She was tall and dark and as disturbing as ever. Part of him recoilled from her strangeness, but that part was buried deep in his subconcious. She was just a girl, just a _human_. What danger was she when he was the one with the deadly weapon? His teeth shone brightly as he smiled at her. "Meredith... what a pleasure it is to see you again..."

Meredith's expression of cold resolution did not waver one bit even as Damon's power washed over her. She had her defences up high so that not even Bonnie's sobs penetrated her concentration. She had spent the last hour before coming here meditating and her year's studying both the physical aspects and the mental of ancient Martial Arts was allowing her to keep him out of her head. The blocks were easy to keep in place around her, and so she could even smile as he struggled against her. Her smile dropped instantly when she saw Bonnie staring back at her, still concious but with blood in a puddle all around her. She didn't even have to ask who had done this, it was too obvious to miss.

"Get away from here," Stefan told her, as desperate as she had ever seen him, "there's nothing you can do."

Meredith shook her head minutely and took from behind her back the Fighting Stave she had thought to bring with her. She held it out infront of her like a sword, but Stefan could tell just by her posture that she knew it was far more than that. She smiled grimly, her eyes never leaving his face, "I will not allow this," she said in a resonating voice that was not quite her own, "I will send this evil back to where it came from."

Stefan blinked, confused, but Bonnie's whole body tensed with antisipation.

"What are you talking about?" Stefan asked, not understanding.

"You can try," Damon said silkily, answering Meredith with a grin, none of his usual hesitance when talking to her evident in his voice. Why had he been scared of her before?

She took a step forwards towards him and began to recite the verse that would summon her power. She felt the vibrations running through the shaft of her weapon like electricity and she waited for it to shock her.

"No!" Bonnie screamed, despite herself, as Damon lunged forward, grasped the stave in his hand... and the scene exploded in a burst of dazzling light that consumed everything and everyone as it spread outwards and washed over all of them.

TBC


	7. Fix You

**Phantom**

**7**

When the light at last faded, Bonnie could at last open her eyes. She was in her bedroom, lying on her bed, and Meredith was there too. The headache that was building felt like needles pricking her eye balls. Although the most of the brightness had faded, she preferred that crimson darkness of her lids. It was easier to pretend that it had all been just a dream if she could not see. If she hadn't felt so sore, and raw, she might have been able to convince herself, but instead the throbbing down-below only seemed to punctuate the reality of it all. She was no longer wondering how she had never seen this coming, but wondering how she could ever turn back the clocks. At least if she had seen this coming her heart wouldn't be shattered like so many pieces of glass.

A woman not much older than she sat in a plastic garden chair, her eyes moving across the page she read in the heavy black book. Her dark hair fell about her in waves, as dark as ever, but her olive skin was noticeably more pale than it had been before. "Meredith?" she said softly, her voice barely substantial enough to be heard. The other girl held up a finger to indicate that she wait just a second, while she presumably finished what she was reading.

Meredith's face lifted from the book and she smiled with pleasure at seeing Bonnie awake. When Damon, or rather the phantom that inhabited his body, had tried to stop the magic before it had had time to work, and that brilliant light had engulfed them, it had knocked all four of them out. Now Damon was missing, and god-only-knew what state he would be in when she caught up with him. She didn't even have to think about it before she made her decision, "Bonnie," she responded, her most no-crap voice, and it was as commanding as it ever had been before, "we're going to have to preform an exorcism – well, you are since you're the only one who can wield this kind of magic."

Bonnie had a terrible feeling in her gut about what she would say next, a horrible, hollow feeling. "But—but—but you have the stave! Can't you use that!" she cried out in indignation, "What can I do? I can't fix this!" That, she was sure of, as sure as she had been that Damon would have killed her. She watched as Meredith tapped the cracked paper of the page she had open in her lap as if it were mesmerizing. Bonnie had been staring at the elegant finger when the vision came and she saw Damon laying on the ground with a stake through his chest. "No!" she screamed.

Meredith's brows drew together in confusion. She had spent hours, ever since recovering Bonnie, searching for the right spell. There were little post-its marking a few spells that seemed as if they dealt with possession, but they were all too vague about their purpose for her to make up her mind as to which one they should use – hence the reason she had marked so many spells for Bonnie to decide upon. Though she had no real desire to bring the real Damon back alive, she knew how it would devastate her friend to lose him all the same. She would ask why later, because right now it was unimportant. "What is it Bonnie?" she said as a tingle of fear rolled sluggishly down her spine at the expression upon Bonnie's face. "What did you see?" she asked calmly.

"Damon!" she burst out, "Where is he!"

"I don't... Bonnie, is there something going on that I don't know about?"

"Where is he?" she said, begging Meredith to tell her with her eyes and the hands she gripped her with, knowing that she only had a little time. Visions of the future were usually useful, but the latest sight she had had was everything but. How could she think now with her imagination conjuring up images of Damon's apparent closeness to death relentlessly? This was one of the few times that Bonnie had ever seen Meredith look uncertain.

Meredith caught her bottom lip between her teeth and began to chew at it thoughtfully, as if deciding if one course of action was worse than the other. She wondered in the silence that had fallen if she should tell Bonnie where Damon was being kept and allow her to go to him, or keep her mouth shut and do what Stefan told her to do – keep Bonnie away from the cellar. Her instincts were probably right, that she should listen to the centuries-old vampire, but who was she to stand in the way of true love? She sighed in exasperation. "Stefan is keeping him chained up with silver, it's the only way he could keep Damon from killing you."

"What is Stefan doing to him?" Bonnie asked with an unaccustomed fierceness in her voice.

"Um, I think he's trying to banish whatever monster is inside his brother..."

Bonnie's face lit up with a kind of hope that resonated what she must be feeling inside that it was like looking at an open Bonnie-book. "So, you believe me? You believe that it's not Damon in that body, not the real Damon?" She didn't know why, but Meredith's thoughts on the matter seemed more important than her own. Maybe it was because Meredith spent so much of her time thinking, knew so much about everything it seemed, but the faith she had in the tall dark one was faultless. "You're not going to call me stupid again, are you?"

There was a rattle of chains and a howl from below. Stefan was hissing something, it seemed, to Damon but with only human hearing Bonnie could not hear the words.

"This spell," Meredith said after the pause, deciding that she did not really need to answer the question, "is for an exorcism."


	8. The Real You

**Phantom**

**8**

Damon was strapped to a kitchen-chair when Bonnie entered clutching the leather-bound volume, but his eyes followed her just as surly as if he could move. It was just Stefan's word to say that he could not escape from the rope that bound him, and right now his word didn't feel like enough. She felt Damon leer at her as she almost ran past him to a cupboard at the back of the room, the power of his gaze reaching her even now. It felt as though his probing gaze were undressing her, and a cold wind seemed to blow into her back. She had to fight the urge to look back at him, whatever she did.

"These ropes can't hold me forever, Bonnie, and when I get out..." he purred, "... you and I are going to have a talk." The way he said this left no questions as to what he really meant. There would be no _talking_ and she knew it, which only served to to make her squirm. Her body still ached from his rough treatment from before, aching in ways that she hadn't thought it could, and the insinuation that the pain would come again made her unable to relax her widened eyes. He couldn't mean to be telling her that she hadn't been tortured enough, that it wasn't over, could he?

"You will never touch her again," Stefan growled, the vibrations of his voice enough that the glasses on the table rattled. He didn't know what he would do if his brother ever did something like this again to a human who couldn't defend herself. There were no words to describe how appalled he was, how guilty he felt. If he hadn't come back to this town out of misguided hope that he could begin again, none of this would have ever happened. Even worse was his hopelessness; how could he fix this without killing his brother? He did not want Damon to die, he just wanted him to learn that was more to life than killing and consuming.

Damon's eyes turned dark, and the in the next moment he had the ropes in tattered pieces on the floor. He smiled, "Oh, really? Is that so, brother?" Damon said obligingly, gesturing in mock realisation, "Do you really think you could stop me if I were to..." he came up from behind Bonnie as she extracted another ingredient from the cupboard, putting both his hands on her waist, "touch her here, or here," he kissed her neck tenderly, "or here?" now his hands were exploring beneath her top recklessly, managing to rip her bra as easily a human would do paper. He felt all around her chest and moaned low in her ear. She might pretend that this was not affecting her at all, but he could smell her arousal as permeated the air.

Stefan frowned as he watched them together, feeling as if he were indecent somehow by not looking away.

_Damn_, but his touch ignited something within her that was better left unexplained. Maybe she liked her love rough, or maybe the terror was making her heart pound like this in her chest, she didn't know. Whatever the reason, though, she felt herself turning liquid in his arms as he continued to molest her unwaveringly. She moaned and sagged against him, her footing uncertain after feeling his electric fingers against her skin. "You see, brother," he said matter-of-factly, "I can do whatever I like," a pointed look in Bonnie's direction, "to whomever I choose."

The book almost fell from her fingers, but she caught it quickly before it could move more than an inch. This wasn't the Damon she had known, had loved, and whatever consequences came with the casting of this spell would have a better result, there was no way things could get worse. Her fingers were white against the warn leather of the front as she clasped it in her hands with all the strength she possessed; if there were ever a reason to be strong it was sitting before her with a viscous grin on it's face. She opened the book to the page book-marked with a florescent pink post-it note.

"Bonnie?" Stefan asked, unsure as to why she was suddenly so still, her chest hardly moving with her breath. Her eyes were wide but oddly focused, buy on what he did not know,

"What happened, why do I find myself strapped to this chair like a torture victim?" He asked with annoyance, confusion only showing in his eyes, but he did not remove himself from the chair for a moments, even after he had so quickly presumed was meant for darker purposes. His gaze flicked briefly between Stefan and Meredith, but his attention was for Bonnie, his nose wrinkling with the scent of her fear. Something had happened, he knew this, and he must have done something to warrant being held here like a prisoner. The fear radiating of Bonnie was like some sort of sick torture method, a method that had been proven to give results time and time again. Where in this mess had he grown so soft and sentimental?

Damon stood with a slightly less graceful movement than before, but there was no doubting that he was still the most lethal thing any of them had ever come across. He did not spare a glance at his brother before going to stand beside Bonnie, his eyes like liquid darkness as he stared into her's. He wanted to make her love him like he loved her, and he wrapped her up in his arms. Her lips were trembling and he took it to be because of fear – and it was fear that he enjoyed in his prey.

"Don't do anything you'll regret, Damon," Stefan warned after a glance from Bonnie that indicated that this might not be over yet.

Bonnie's small hand spread wide on his chest and there was no heartbeat she could feel beneath the layers of muscle. She spoke the final part of the spell out loud and watched the same bright light as from before flow from her finger tips and around his chest like vines wrapping tightly around a tree. She could practically hear the hushed silence of the room, feel it almost in the air, and she prayed that when she at last had the strength to open her eyes she would see _Damon_ looking back at her. "Damon?" she asked him timidly, her still tingling hand moving to rest on his cheek.


	9. I Love You

**Phantom**

**9**

The light in her hand began to ebb, "Damon?" Her voice like wind-chimes as it reached him through the strange darkness that had been all he could see and feel. He stood straight and felt the eyes on him, watching him as if he were volatile. Bonnie's hand, which had come to be on his chest with his difference in height, dropped in response to the flicker of his gaze in her direction. He felt the loss of her body-heat instantaneously, the lovely warmth, and her hand was in his before it could come to rest at her side. He squeezed it gently and let go almost instantly afterwards, though the need to hold any part of her was strong. He looked around him at the two other figures in the room.

"Stefan?" he asked, his voice so quiet and gentle, even as he gazed at his red-bird's stricken face. He had wished never to see the expression she wore now, and certainly not because of him. It was fear he saw etched there, in her eyes, in the trembling of her lower lip, and it was heartache he could hear with every beat. He could not remember how he came to be here, in this kitchen with the one he had been fascinated in much longer than he had anything else. His brother being here with him was not a surprise, however, since he always seemed to be getting himself, and Damon, into trouble almost as regularly as Elena had.

He didn't like to think about _her_ any more, however much Stefan liked to think otherwise. It was as clear as a starry night how much he missed having to compete for her attentions, and it was just as obvious that Elena missed his attraction to her also. But it was just too bad, because Damon had found something much more meaningful than an infatuation to occupy himself with.

"Do you remember anything after you kissed Bonnie?" Stefan asked him, almost as if he was actually curious. Damon doubted it; since when had his stupid little brother cared what he did romantically? When he turned to Bonnie, he noticed that she was blushing, adding a delicious pink shade to her cheeks. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss not only her cheeks, but the luscious red of her parted lips, which seemed so much more inviting. _No_, he thought, _her mouth is all I can remember. _

"Why do I feel as if I am missing something important?" Damon asked, his eyebrow raising just a bit. He could tell that there was something, he could see it so clearly in both of their expressions that he knew he could not be wrong. He fixed Stefan with a glare that would have reduced Bonnie to tears had she seen but a glimpse of it, "Tell me, brother." he said.

Stefan began to answer, but Bonnie had already taken Damon's hand in hers and was stroking her thumb across it luxuriously, her smooth skin like a numbing cream, as if preparing him for something that might sting. She was gazing at him in the way she always seemed to, as if she knew more about what he was feeling than he himself did. But unlike him, she seemed worried about something, and it was clear on her face that it was him she feared for.

He felt himself shiver internally, not with cold, but with a pleasure so sincere and pure it was like floating in water that held you safe and warm. He wondered if she would fight him if he took advantage of her closeness to kiss her, or if, by some miracle, she melted into him as he would into her. Was it worth the chance that she would reject him just to kiss her this once? Was it worth the risk of losing her forever?

-Stefan was about to reveal all that had gone on that day, she could tell, but there was really no need to reopen barely healed wounds. Maybe it was selfish of her to want to keep Damon in the dark about this, but it would be just this once, and neither she nor Stefan had any idea what Damon had been through. In time, he might start to remember, and when that time came she knew it would be easier to deal with it without Damon knowing they had been keeping things from him. She would wait until that time, and treasure her time with him until then, however long or short that time might be-

He took her hand in his and gently pulled her into him. She didn't fight or struggle or squirm in his arms, which was a plus he hadn't thought would happen. She felt so good against him and he knew that if it were possible to hold her like this forever he would gladly stand here until the apocalypse. He wanted her like he had never wanted anyone, or anything, ever before in his long life. He didn't know if he would be able to let her go if she wanted to leave him, didn't know if he could stand to see her walk away, but he loved her enough to let her go if that was what she truly desired. "You have no _idea_ how grateful I am to be free," he whispered between kisses, "no idea at all."

"I love you, Damon." she whispered against his chest, her tone a little solemn, almost as if she expected to be punished in some way or another for such a confession, "I never want to feel as if I have lost you again."

That simple sentence mirrored what he was thinking so perfectly that he laughed. "With any luck, neither of us will have to feel that way."

Stefan averted his eyes in embarrassment and the scene before him, of little Bonnie making out with his violent, egotistic, soulless brother as if she would suck his soul from his body. He didn't want to watch but he couldn't help his eyes from wandering.

The End

:-)


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